I went to a Drinking Skeptically hangout in the Villagelast night -- I was way early, sipping my hard cider atthe bar for an hour before anybody else arrived, butboth the first and second attendees (after me) had thisto say: "Oh my God, I think Trump is actually going towin!" **I** was the one to say -- "Calm down, let's notjump to conclusions, people are going to have a chanceto come to their senses by November." But they both insisted,"Nope. Trump's going to win."

> I have been watching Game of Thrones and the Trial by Combat> (option only available to nobles) has always struck me as> only valid if the society doesn’t care about truth.

Quite some time ago I read a paper by an economist that arguedthat “trial by combat” and dueling serves a rational purposein a society that lacks access to information (like forensicsor credit reporting). Roughly speaking, reputation stands asa (subjective) proxy for unavailable (objective) informationlike credit, reliability, or innocence, and a willingness totake a significant risk to defend your reputation is usefulevidence.

It would be hard to lay my hands on the paper now, but IIRCit modeled this using game theory, and pointed out that ahabitual defaulter or a habitual criminal will be forced todefend their reputation repeatedly, which carries a significantrisk of dying in a duel or combat. An honest person will tendto face few such challenges, and a correspondingly low risk.The willingness to accept that risk demonstrates that youare either: innocent, and rationally accepting of this slightrisk; guilty, and an overwhelming duelist; or guilty, and an idiot.

The key is to realize that societies where dueling was commonwere also societies that couldn’t perform forensics, or transmitcredit information from distant locales, or do background checks.It’s not that they placed low value on truth, but that theylacked the means to find out the truth and settled for a proxythat was more reliable than a coin flip.

If we used trial by combat today, in lieu of DNA testing, thenit would indeed mean that we placed a low value on truth.

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Scientismist28 July 2016

> Trial by Combat (option only available to nobles) has always> struck me as only valid if the society doesn’t care about truth.

No, you are missing the point. Trial by combat (or by talk-show “debate”)has always been favored by political bullies. Antonin Scalia even regrettedthat we no longer choose our head of state through armed combat.His reasoning was instructive: it allows the common people to see thatGod’s Will has been served, and helps them to accept unquestioninglythat the government, which wields the Sword of God’s Justice hereon earth, must never be limited or judged by the moral standardsof mere humans. That’s why he supported the death penalty inspite of opposition from his own Catholic Church, which he pointedout was merely human moral guidance, and had never been investedwith the same divine “infallibility” as its opposition to abortion.

It’s not that they don’t care about truth; it’s that they have afar different definition of “truth” in which evidence and reasonplay no part — where they are indeed a hindrance. That’s whyconservative support for education begins and ends with“spiritual education,” and why reality, as we all know,has a liberal bias.====

(I suppose "jollyspaniard" is still reading this blog --he commented as recently as March of this year.)

http://amormundi.blogspot.ca/2011/04/when-do-we-reach-limits-how-do-we-know.html----------When Do We Reach the Limits? How Do We Know? What Is Our Responsibility Then?Upgraded and Adapted from the Moot:

It is actually wrong to assume that America can weather infinitelymany pointless blows to its legitimacy, credit, and ecology. Therereally are limits beyond which it is no longer possible to function. . .

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jollyspaniard said...

America hasn't weathered the Bush presidency to be frank.It stands greatly diminished as a nation in many respects.Obama's presidency may be viewed in retrospect as a band aidon a sucking chest wound.

Another blow like that could plunge the United States intoa USSR style imperial collapse quite quickly. A contractionseems likely anyways but there are good and bad ways to managethat contraction. How that contraction is handled will be veryimportant, perhaps more important than trying to prevent itfrom happening in the first place.====

Who woulda believed, in that innocent time five years ago,the vision in a crystal ball tuned to the year 2016?